In My Shoes
by kenina
Summary: Jim's reflections on who he is, following his first counseling session with Galloway.


Title: In My Shoes  
Rating: PG-13 for language and sexual situations  
Spoilers: Anything up to Doggone  
Disclaimer: I don't own the story or characters. No copyright infringement intended.  
Summary: Jim's thoughts about his first session with Dr. Galloway.  
Author's Note: Thanks to my chat friends for your feedback and comments, especially rmiro13, who gets part of the credit, since some of the words are hers. This is something way different than I usually do. Would love any feedback, constructive or otherwise. Also want to put in a plug to keep the B/J fires burning -- send an email to your local ABC affiliate and to ABC expressing your disappointment that the show isn't on the fall schedule. Write to Steve McPherson, president of ABC entertainment. Write to anyone and everyone. Tell your friends and family to watch. Sign the petition at

www . petitiononline . com/BJ0308/ (remove extra spaces before copying and pasting)

There's been no official "cancellation," so let's keep trying. I've heard they're going to show reruns beginning in August, so there IS still hope.

* * *

_How do you think you'd feel if you were in my shoes?_

I've gone over this conversation in my head a hundred times. A thousand, maybe. Still can't believe I said the words out loud. Despite my accusation to the contrary, I knew, deep down, that Galloway would keep our conversations to himself. In fact, that knowledge is the only thing that kept me from losing it after that first session. I've kept these feelings clutched so tightly to my chest, for so long, that I thought when I let them go, I might lose my grasp on the last shreds of dignity—and sanity—I've tried so hard to hold onto since the day I was shot.

Correction: not _that _day. It took me months before I could even remember _that _day—even the hours _before_ the bullet entered my skull. My new life began the next day, when I woke up in the hospital with traumatic optic neuropathy—blown out optic nerves, for those of us that don't understand medical gibberish.

_I'd be scared.  
_

Galloway imagined that he'd be _scared_ if he'd lost his sight. He had no idea how right he was. And he would never understand how it was so much more than that, too. Yes, it's humbling. It's annoying. Frustrating. Sometimes enraging. I could come up with adjectives until next Christmas. But _scary_ ranks right up there, at least as far as how common the emotion is in my daily life, even after a year and change.

_Of what?_

Scared of putting on a black jacket with navy pants. Scared of letting my thoughts wander, even for a second, which means getting lost on a city street and having to ask for help. Scared that the department will reconsider and order me to stay at my desk for the rest of my career. Scared that I won't have Karen's back. Scared that I'm going to wake up one day and wonder what the hell I was thinking when I sued to get my job back. That the day is going to come that I'm going to have to admit that I _can't_ do my job. Scared that Christie will decide she doesn't want to be married to me anymore.

_Of failing? _

There are a hell of a lot of ways to fail...and I must've thought about all of them at one time or another. In some sense, I think I failed the moment I let the guy shoot me. If I had moved sooner, or had better aim, or quicker reflexes, it wouldn't have happened, regardless of Terry's or anyone else's actions. In fact, I think part of the reason I was so angry at Terry is that I was projecting my anger at myself onto him so I could get rid of it. So I didn't have to face it, or even acknowledge that it exists.

How's that piece of psychoanalytic bullshit for you, Galloway?

I've been scared of failing at work ever since I started fighting for reinstatement. Definitely since I walked into the squad room that first day. And even more after Marlon Condell pulled the gun in front of us. But I haven't felt quite as close to the precipice of failure as I did yesterday, standing in the middle of nowhere in Hoboken, praying for some little sign that would tell me where I was, and cursing my lack of eyesight over and over again. What upset me the most about the situation, though, wasn't the fact that I didn't know where I was, or that they had to send a marked car out looking for me, or even that I stumbled around like an idiot for 20 minutes just to find a sign that I could read. It was the fact that I was totally helpless to do anything when those dealers showed up. I might've thrown a punch myself if it'd been only the one guy. I wanted to so bad when he snapped his fingers in front of my face—he was close enough that I could've taken him out. But I had no idea where the second guy was, and I couldn't take the chance that he'd splatter Debbie's or Sonny's brains all over the ground in retaliation.

Despite all of that, though, if I'm being honest with myself, the worst failure I've experienced in the last year had absolutely nothing at all to do with my job. The thing is, I've always been a visual kind of guy when it comes to...getting it up. I guess I should be using the past tense. But anyway, some guys can fantasize it up, and some need physical contact, and some like to look at pictures—or the real thing, right in front of them. Well, it took my brain—and other parts—six looooong months to catch up to the fact that that last avenue wasn't open anymore. When you do something a certain way for 25 or so years, you kinda get so used to it, it becomes automatic. So it was a shock to my system the first time Christie and I tried to have sex after I got home. I was in a weird place, so it wasn't like I was all gung ho to begin with. But I was certainly willing. Until...I realized that the reason my body wasn't responding was because I was used to _seeing_ her. Her beautiful, dark hair spilling down over her shoulders. Her small, perfect breasts, and...well, everything else that makes a woman a woman.

After Christie threatened to tell him herself, I talked to my neurologist about it, and he said it was probably a combination of my visual "preference" and post-traumatic stress syndrome. And that I just had to wait it out. Not the best news, especially to a guy who's just lost his sight. I mean, I felt like I'd lost my manhood at the same time—which was _worse_ in some respects. And it didn't help matters that I felt like a complete failure, like it was my fault. As far as I was concerned, the doc couldn't have said "it's all in your head" any more clearly. Thank God Christie was patient and understanding. And thank God I eventually got past the block, whether it was mental or physical. I learned to use my imagination, and also to let Christie's smell, the feel and taste of her skin, and her murmurs and moans take the place of the visual stimuli I used to rely on. Now I can't believe I never paid much attention to all that stuff before.

Anyway, since I got straightened out, the bedroom is the one room in the apartment where we don't have any problems. And I'm not talking to a shrink about it even if he threatens to get my ass fired. I'm actually pretty freaked out by the possibility that Christie might bring it up when I go back to Galloway next week with her in tow, to talk about our issues. I mean, it's not an issue anymore, so I just don't see the need to go there.

_Not being able to connect with people the way you used to? _

The thing about blindness – I feel like I'm trapped inside my own head all the time, with nothing to keep me company but my own thoughts. People say the eyes are the windows to the soul, but I know they have it backwards. The eyes are a person's window onto the world. Well, someone's lowered the blinds and drawn the curtains on my window, and there's not a damn thing I can do about it. The rehab people taught me how to replace the input I used to get from my eyes with what I can still get from my ears, nose, mouth, fingers. They seemed to think the other four senses were just as important as the one I lost. I don't know if they really believe it, or if they were just trying to convince me so I'd go on with things and not just want to stay in bed all day with the covers up over my head, pretending that it's not true—that I'm not really blind.

Nowhere is it more painfully obvious that the other four _aren't _as important as the one I lost than at parties. Some are going to be better than others, but that first one, the dinner party at Clay's place, was almost unbearable. I could hear people's conversation and laughter swirling around me, and I couldn't figure out how to join in. Part of it was my own fault—first, I shouldn't have insisted that Christie mingle without me. Too much damn pride was all that was. I didn't want to feel like a burden, a sack of potatoes that she had to drag around with her from group to group. But also, I should have just brought the damn cane. Again, it was just pride that kept me from doing it. I didn't want to stick out like a sore thumb, both for my sake and for Christie's. It's not like I would've wanted to navigate an unfamiliar room with 30 pairs of eyes on me, in any case. But maybe if I'd had it out and visible, some of those strangers would've realized I needed them to step up and initiate contact with me, rather than just walking by without a word.

Walter's retirement party went a lot better. Probably because it was my friends, instead of Christie's, so I felt a lot more comfortable. People came up to us all night to say hi, to welcome me back to the force, that kind of thing. It was nice. Of course, most of them apparently never felt the urge to pick up the phone or visit while I was off the job. But what can you expect? Anyway, it was easier to connect with people in that environment, but I still felt…a little isolated, somehow. I guess it's just going to take some getting used to—socializing blind, I mean. It's a different creature altogether from socializing sighted. It's not just me that has to adapt—it's an extra burden on Christie, too. Or whoever I'm with at the moment. I have to depend on them to start conversations, introduce me to people, explain whatever visual cues I miss.

A few weeks ago when Marty and Tom asked me to go bowling after work, I remembered that I used to be the guy who organized those kinds of outings. I was always up for happy hour, or whatever reason for a get-together I could think of. Now I'm so exhausted at the end of the day, just wiped out, it's hard to make the effort anymore. I'm glad I did the other night, though, going out for a beer with the guys. I really felt like I connected with them that night, even though I couldn't really enjoy the basketball game. That was the only thing that kept me feeling a little like I was on the outside looking in—no pun intended.

The isolation I feel isn't just in social situations, either—Karen does double duty on the job, too, for which I'll be forever in her debt. I'll always need help breaking out of that isolation—maybe identifying who to talk to, or figuring out what's what at a crime scene. She doesn't seem to mind, and she never complains, but I know it's inconvenient sometimes. And she definitely never volunteered for it. But she also never punishes me for it—and she never cuts me any slack in what I _can_ do as her partner. For which I'll also be forever in her debt.

_Being pitied? _

This fear is the worst of all of them. At least, it is for an NYPD cop. A Gulf War veteran. A tough kid from the mean streets of Brooklyn, with an alcoholic father and classmates who loved to hurl insults and throw punches. Blind? Not that kid. Not that soldier. Not that cop. Blind people are different, strange, sad.

I'm not any of those things...am I?

If I'm not, the one thing I _am_ is a huge hypocrite. How the hell can I be offended by other people's pity when I myself associate "blind" with "sad"? Before, I always pitied blind people—I thought it was a natural and appropriate reaction. The only blind people I ever knew, or knew of, were my great-grandmother and the hot dog vendor on the corner next to my old precinct headquarters. My great-grandmother has been dead for years, and I haven't gone back to talk to that vendor since I was shot. What would I say to him? But I remember thinking he was lucky to have that job—and I even wondered why he didn't just stay home and collect disability from the government. So maybe it's some kind of twisted karmic justice that I ended up fighting to keep _my_ job as a blind guy.

Yeah, okay, so sometimes I get _sad_ at not being able to see. I miss the silhouetted Statue of Liberty in front of a blazing red-and-gold sunset. I get a little knot in my stomach when it occurs to me, as it does at least once a day, that I'll never see Christie's beautiful face again. That I'll never again know what anyone looks like if I didn't know them before. That I might even start forgetting some of the ones I do know from before.

And yeah, so being blind means I've had to change and adapt a lot of my usual way of doing things. It's the little things that get me, like not knowing where the food is on the plate unless someone tells me or I touch it—which would've gotten me slapped good and hard as a kid. I'm loving finger foods these days, that's for sure. Another thing I hate is having to put everything in the same place, keep everything so neat, just so I can find stuff. I always had my own system of "organized chaos," Christie always called it, both at home and at work. Not anymore. Now everything has its place. Bills go in order in file folders with Braille labels. Keys go on the front hall table. Watch on the dresser. Shoes in the closet shoe rack. Case reports in alphabetical order in the file cabinet, with more Braille labels. A place for everything and everything in its place, my mother used to say. Sometimes I just want to throw something down where it doesn't belong, and be able to go back for it whenever I want, without trying to remember where I put it and without searching for it for a half hour. Christie loves that I have to be neat now, but I know even she gets frustrated at having to make sure not to move _anything_ around or leave anything in my path. She used to rearrange the furniture every few months—in fact, she even did it while I was at Guiding Eyes for a couple weeks getting Hank. She didn't even think about all the ramifications until I got home. She forgot to tell me, and the very first thing I did was trip over the end table and break a Tiffany lamp. Oops.

But despite all of that, I _don't_ see this as some big tragedy on the scale of world famine or genocide, like people seem to think. I don't even think it has to be the very first thing acknowledged about me as a human being—although it _always_ is, especially because of my job. I want to tell people, hey, the sense of sight isn't all it's cracked up to be—Condell's suicide the other day is a perfect example. Karen was absolutely right when she said I was better off not having seen that. A lot of stuff I come across in my job, I'm better off missing out on. And I work with people who mostly do a good job of describing the rest, the stuff I need to know about. Okay, so no more sunsets—bad. But people treat it like a fate worse than death. The minute people realize I'm blind, their whole attitude changes—these days I can pretty much sense the exact moment it happens. Depends on if I'm wearing the shades, or if someone sticks out their hand for me to shake, but it always comes. A little pause, a stutter, something that gives them away. Oh, poor guy, it's so awful, wandering around in the dark. Let's grab his arm and help him across the street, 'cause God knows the dog surely won't be able to get him the 20 steps across without getting hit by a bus. Little old ladies are the worst. You know what? I don't feel sorry for you because you're 80 years old and have arthritis and emphysema, so don't feel sorry for me just because I can't see your wrinkles and French poodle, okay? We all have crosses to bear.

Nah, I'm not bitter. I just sometimes wish I could wear a sign or something that says, "Yes, I'm blind. Get over it."

So I guess I am scared of being pitied. I mean, I want to avoid it, so I guess that's a kind of fear. Even without the petty annoyance factor, pity makes it a hell of a lot harder to do my job. Detectives have to evoke certain emotions and reactions in people, and pity is not a helpful one. I'm figuring out how best to act and what to say to people, though, to make them more comfortable with it, so Karen and I can do what we need to do. And it's getting better.

I'm getting better at not caring, too. Or even sometimes seeing the bright side to situations where I know pity's factoring into someone's behavior toward me. Last night, when we went to pick up Hank from that guy in the East Village, pity saved me $500. And frankly, I was fine with that. The guy thinks I'm a charity case? Hey, all the better for both of us, because my wallet stays fat and he feels good about himself. Christie was worried that I'd be upset about it—when I first lost my sight, I was a real prick to anyone I thought was cutting me any slack. I fully admit that. So she kind of danced around it last night on the way home, till I finally just told her I didn't give a damn. I got Hank back, we kept the money, and all I cared about was getting some sleep before I had to go in to work today. I think she was surprised—not sure why. I keep telling her I've changed. And I'm changing a little more every day.

_Not wanting your anger to boil over when it starts to heat up? _

After I lost my sight—and even before then—Christie accused me a lot of keeping my feelings to myself, of not expressing my emotions. What she failed to comprehend—what I couldn't tell her—was that I couldn't risk expressing _anything_, for a long time. I just couldn't let it out. I was afraid that once I started, I wouldn't stop. I'm scared of what I might do—maybe to her, maybe to myself. Maybe to some perp on the street.

They say everyone goes through five stages of grief—my rehab counselor said it applied to disabling injuries just like someone dying. Denial's the first—even though it's pretty damn hard to deny you can't see anything. But I guess it did take some convincing those first few weeks before I realized it was permanent. I calmly and repeatedly asked for second opinions, until Christie had called just about every neurologist and ophthalmologist in New York and beyond.

When it was over, when there was nobody left to disagree, I couldn't deny it. Then I cried.

Then I got angry—the second stage. That's the one that lasted the longest. Actually, I still have my moments, but not like at the beginning. Christie kept trying to draw me out once I got home, talking nonstop, asking about rehab, telling me about her job, whatever she could think of. And the more she talked, the less I reacted. I wanted to lash out, to break the furniture, curse God and anyone else within earshot. I was honestly afraid that I'd lose my temper and hurt her. That's why I retreated into myself, shut down, stayed in the apartment and tried not to think about anything.

The anger eventually started subsiding, and I guess I went through a little of the third stage: bargaining. That's when I started talking about a lawsuit. My lieutenant had come to see me when I got home from the hospital. He said he was just checking up on me, but then, right as he was leaving, he asked me for my gun and badge. I felt like he had punched me in my gut. I could hear in his voice that he hated to have to do it, but he did it anyway. I asked him not to take them, asked if we could talk after I was out of rehab, but he said he had orders from above, and there was nothing he could do. I called a lawyer that night. I figured if I could just get back to work, then I wasn't really disabled. I might not get my sight back, but I'd be just as good as I was before. I'm not sure I ever believed that myself, but it gave me a light at the end of the tunnel.

The next stage, depression, hit me like a ton of bricks. The lawsuit was stalled in mediation, and I found out Guiding Eyes wouldn't accept me as a candidate to get a guide dog until I learned to use the cane, something I'd been fighting against tooth and nail. I thought I'd just get a dog and that would be that. I had this mental image of a blind guy tap-tap-tapping his way down the sidewalk, people moving out of his way and staring, wide-eyed, with horror and repulsion. My rehab counselor just about went crazy trying to convince me to go out in public and learn to move independently. All I could do was dwell on the fact that I couldn't just walk down the street anymore, hands in my pockets, not thinking about anything but the weather. I could stop thinking as long as I just hung onto Christie's arm.

What finally woke me up was a call from the mayor's office. They wanted to give me an award for bravery, at a very public ceremony. The lawyer was starting to be aggressive in mediation, and it looked like the lawsuit was heading to court. The last thing in the world I wanted was for the city to parade me up on a stage in front of all the cameras and journalists with their notepads, especially when behind the scenes they were being such hardasses about the job. But I knew that if I wanted a shot at getting back to work, and back to my life, I was going to have to deal with whatever life threw at me. And that meant learning how to travel independently. After I hung up the phone that day, I picked it right back up, called my rehab counselor, and started learning cane travel the next day. Three months later, thanks to a timely intervention by someone with some political clout, I was at Guiding Eyes, meeting Hank for the first time.

I'd like to say I never looked back, but I'd be lying. Anger comes back every now and then, like when Marty was giving me such a hard time at work—and when Clay flirted with Christie at that party. But as time goes on, I'm realizing that those things don't always have to do with my blindness. They're just _life_ happening. And I'm actually grateful in some respects, that Marty got right up in my face and challenged me, and that Clay didn't stay away from Christie in deference to my disability.

Christie's right—I have been self-absorbed since the shooting. Maybe because of the nature of blindness itself, but also because I've been caught up in figuring out who I am now. It took me until I heard it out loud from Dr. Galloway to realize that's what I was doing. I've been in this internal struggle day and night, trying to learn, to adapt…to accept. I think I'm pretty close to the fifth stage, acceptance. Not quite, but I'm getting there. Like just these last few weeks at work, I've been able to lighten up a little. Teasing Karen about dating, betting with Marty on how our cases are gonna play out in the DA's office, that kind of stuff. I think I've started to regain my sense of humor. Crazy as it may sound, I honestly thought I'd lost it along with my sight. Christie said over and over that she missed my laughter in the house, missed seeing my smile. I missed it, too, but didn't know how to reclaim it. Karen helped a lot with that—even though I'd kidded her about just having a decent sense of humor, as she got more comfortable with me, I realized she has much more than that. I haven't asked her if she's known any blind people before, but it sure seems like she has. She's so natural with me, and has been since the beginning. Didn't take her long to accept me as her partner, and after that happened, she's been revealing more of herself to me. And I really like what I see.

_I **will**__make this work. _

That wasn't just some melodramatic proclamation meant to convince Galloway that I'm fit for duty. I'm realizing that every day, I'm a little more at peace with myself. A little less self-pitying. A little more confident in my abilities, as a cop, and as a man. Less self-conscious when I'm out with Hank, or even with the cane. I know I stand out, that people pre-judge me, or pity me, but I guess I just don't care as much anymore. They're living their lives, and I'm living mine, the best way I know how. Scared, humbled, frustrated, enraged…content. I'm all of those things. I'm a husband, a cop, a veteran, a blind person. That's who I am. And that's okay.


End file.
